We should have…

David Orr recently completed his last Conservation in Context column in Conservation Biology. I don’t know him and I’m not a conservationist biologist, but through the years I have frequently found myself reading his column. His last, and perhaps most poignant of those I’ve read, was just published. I quote a short section here,

“Furthermore, I think we should have learned to be more adept, personable, and creative in talking to the public and the guys down at the truck stop and the women working two jobs to make ends meet. I think we might have gone to fewer scientific conferences in exotic places and to more Rotary meetings and tedious city council sessions. We should have talked less often to ourselves in a scientific jargon and more often to the public and in the common tongue. And we should have mastered the art of persuasion on radio and television the way some others have.”

It’s never too late. Find time to give a talk to your local organization, at your child’s school and if you’re desperate (or crazy) or really, really brave, maybe even to Fox News. We have a lot of ground to recover.

For those of you who don’t have access to these journals, see here and please don’t tell Wiley.